1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display apparatus for use with a gaming machine such as a slot machine or a pinball machine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a display apparatus conveniently adaptable to two or more kinds of gaming machines.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A gaming hall such as a casino or the like contains a great number of gaming machines such as pinball machines and slot machines. A pinball machine uses steel balls as its play media. A slot machine uses tokens including coins as its play media.
Each pinball machine, of an upright type called "pachinko", incorporates a board on which balls move downward and has a number of win holes, an advantage hole, and a loss hole. When balls to be played are shot, they fall by gravity down the front of the board. If a ball enters one of the win holes or the advantage hole, a player acquires a win. When the ball enters the advantage hole, a bonus winning display is triggered to appear for a predetermined period, after which the bonus winning display shows a fixes pattern determined at random. If the pattern as shown coincides with a specific winning pattern as preset, it is judged to give the player a big win. The pinball machine has a normally closed operable big win receiver, called an "attacker" in the pinball machine art. As soon as a big win occurs, the big win receiver is driven to be fully open as a "bonus", so as to receive a much greater number of balls than the win holes and the advantage hole. It is important to players of pinball machines how frequently a specific pattern is shown in the bonus winning display for a number of entries of balls into the advantage hole, in addition to whether the advantage hole allows easy entry of balls.
It is known from JP-A (Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No.) 4-343874 to provide a display apparatus externally attached for cooperation with each of such pinball machines. This display apparatus is constructed to indicate such information as the number of occurrences of a big win, and the number of entries of balls into the advantage hole, both summed since the opening time of the gaming hall each day. The display apparatus has a call push button, which the player can depress to call for help from the gaming hall staff, when a game as played is involved with an accident or error in operation of the pinball machine.
A slot machine has a set of symbol-displaying reels, or a CRT showing images of such rotary reels. At the start of a game, the reels or the like are rotated and then stopped according to probability. A stopped combination of symbols appears along a winning line across the front of the reels. If the symbol combination as stopped coincides with a specific winning combination, the player is given one of the various wins preset in the slot machine. Those wins are ranked differently as to prizes and advantages to be given to the player. There is a big win, which can be given when a combination "7--7--7" appears. Upon the occurrence of a big win, big bonus games different from a normal game are played next. In a big bonus game, the probability of winning a prize is set to be higher than in a normal game. The player can enjoy this advantage by increasing the number of tokens he inserts.
A single gaming hall may contain both pinball machines and slot machines. It is important to players of slot machines how frequently winning games occur, and in addition how many big wins have occurred. However, the known display apparatus for pinball machines cannot be adapted to the above-described slot machines, because the generally available slot machines are all different from the pinball machines as to kinds of wins, advantages and prizes given to players.
It is inconvenient to design a display apparatus solely adapted for slot machines. There are frequently occasions when the gaming hall rearranges or exchanges gaming machines. If the display apparatuses are differently designed for the different gaming machines, the gaming hall staff is obliged to rearrange or exchange such display apparatuses so as to associate them only with corresponding gaming machines.
Although the above known display apparatus for a pinball machine displays a big win number and an advantage-hole entry number, it is still unknown to provide a structure for displaying how many balls or tokens have been paid or rewarded to a player. The player lacks precise knowledge as to his reward, so that the known display apparatus fails to give him information that will heighten his interest in playing games.